1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus that performs interval photographing for regularly capturing still images or moving pictures at desired time intervals in various photographing modes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in a digital still camera having an interval photographing function, a photographer performs interval photographing by setting a desired photographing time interval.
In this case, the time interval should be set in accordance with the purpose of interval photographing, and a short time interval can be set in a range of several seconds, and a long time interval can be set in a range of several tens of hours.
In digital still cameras having an interval photographing function, when photographing continues for a long time, the amount of image data sometimes becomes large. It is thus necessary to sequentially record the image data on a recording medium, and accordingly, a time necessary for recording the image data on a recording medium should be taken into account.
The time necessary from capturing image data by photographing until finishing recording of the image data on a recording medium is hereinafter referred to as an “access time”. Since the writing time in the access time varies depending on the type of recording medium, it is difficult to finish recording image data before starting the next interval photographing if the time interval for interval photographing is too short. As a result, it is difficult to perform correct interval photographing.
To overcome this drawback, a technique for setting a suitable time interval by informing the user of the shortest time interval that can be set in consideration of the minimal recording time necessary for recording image data depending on the type of recording medium has been proposed, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-326957.